Faces in the Rain
by CDS
Summary: A Private Investigator guards a wealthy lawyer and waits alone for her assassins one rainy night


FACES IN THE RAIN

"I love the rain," the expensively-dressed woman across from said as she leaned back in her chair and gazed wistfully out onto her balcony. I thought, _You must have been in paradise for the past week_. Winter was making a half-assed entrance, failing to supply the necessary coldness to turn the slop it was dumping on us in buckets into anything resembling snow. The woman must have loved the cold, wet evenings of the past week, snuggling up on her expensive couch with a steaming cup of wild berry tea and a good book; watching the rain fall on the balcony of her high-rise, rent-controlled apartment, secure in the knowledge that _this_ would never be taken from her. Her clients might lose their freedom, or their victims may lose their faith in the judicial system, but Judith Liebewitz would never lose the simplicity of a cup of tea, a rainy night, and her spacious apartment with a balcony overlooking the Hudson River. At least, not as long as there were bad men to put back out on the streets. 

I didn't say any of this--it's the sort of thing that puts a client off, and why break a hot streak? I'd just come off a lucrative double-whammy of a week. Six days of surveillance had paid off whem I videotaped the plaintiff in a medical malpractice case helping his girlfriend move a couch into her new apartment--a minor miracle, considering he'd shown up for depositions in a wheelchair and groaned between every sentence. Traveller's Insurance paid me five digits for that tape (I'd tried to negotiate for a cut of the money they'd've forked over in the lawsuit, but that got the reps I was meeting with sneaking furtive glances at their watches and the door to my office, so I settled for my regular rate), and the man's wife had paid me three for the copy that she could turn over to her divorce attorney. 

Judith Liebewitz had called my office--what had once been my bedroom--and asked me to meet her at her apartment. She was afraid to leave the building and would I please be prepared to show some sort of photo ID when I arrived. She was a short, solidly-built woman of perhaps forty-five with a head full of tight, graying curls, and a small face that began with flaring black eyes and ended in a sharp, birdlike mouth. She wore a cashmere sweater over a white turtleneck and white sweatpants and appraised me and my photo ID as she would a prospective client, staring morosely from behind the bars of his cell. 

"I suppose you're wondering about all this: my call, the precautionary measures, et cetera?" she asked, trying to sound informally chatty and failing. Too many days in court holding her client up as the best example of an Establishment gone corrupt and out-of-control had robbed her of any easy accessability. The voice was pleasant enough, but the mouth was set in a mold of grim determination, and the eyes dared you to put your moral fortitude up against hers. "Simply put: I need a bodyguard. I received a threat against my life and I have reason to believe that the people who made it will make good on it tonight." 

"I see," I said. I didn't believe for a second that she was in danger. People like her just cry wolf every so often. The threat of a stalker and possibility of assassination pumps up their sense of self-importance. It's a twisted logic that says in a city where hundreds are murdered every year, the ultimate test of your importance is determined by whether or not someone will go through the trouble of trying to add you to that number. A heroin dealer in the South Bronx was probably bleeding to death as we spoke, his name would never be known, and this lady thought a death threat jacked up her Q-rating. In this city, death was not the quite the great equalizer it once was. The rich even made out better in matters of murder. 

"This must seem a little convoluted to you." She smiled what was supposed to be a sheepish smile. 

"I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall." 

"One year ago a client of mine was executed. LeRoy Washington. He was a part of a gang that was robbing apartments and fencing the merchandise. He allegedly broke into the apartment of an NYU student with a knife. She attacked him. He took the knife from her and stabbed her to death with it. Allegedly." 

"That was a pretty weak allegedly," I observed. 

Liebewitz performed a tiny shrug of her head as if matters of her client's guilt or innocence were a niggling triviality. "It was a strong case against him. They had the knife with her blood on it, her blood on his clothes, her possessions in his apartment. It was a slam-dunk. I wasn't defending him for that--let the PDs do it. That's what they get the big bucks for. I worked on his last death sentence appeal. He killed the girl--Lorraine...Lori...I forget her name, whatever--he killed her back in 1984 and was finally executed last year. One year ago tonight." 

"So who's going to kill you?" I asked. "It's sure as hell not ol' LeRoy." 

Liebewitz smiled tolerantly. "He worked with two other men. On my way out of the courtroom when we lost that appeal, one of them pulled me aside and hissed--and I mean _hissed_--'You got one year, bitch. One year from when LeRoy goes cold. Then you get yours, you fucking useless cunt.' I believe him, Mr. Callow." 

I nodded. So you want me to stay the night? Keep you safe?" 

"The police said they could step up patrols on the street, but were reticent to assign uniforms to look after me, since I had no evidence of the threat. I think they don't have a lot of sympathy for me." 

"So what happens if they don't show up tonight? You gonna keep me on full-time? A private watch dog?" 

"I'll deal with that after I've gotten a good night's sleep tonight, Mr. Callow," she said with a ghost of a smile. 

Bodyguard details were almost impossible for a single-man operation, but one evening certainly was doable. And I figured I could bill Judith Liebewitz for two days worth of work and she's just smile nicely and make out the check. Why not? "Let me get a few things, check on a few things, and I'll be back here by five. Will you okay for that period?" 

"Yes. I'm going into my office, but I take a car service and I'll be surrounded by people at all times in that period." 

"Okay," I said, getting up from her armchair and walking to the coat tree where my navy-blue overcoat hung. "I'll be in touch." She thanked me and I left. The doorman gave me a look of undisguised disdain as I passed him and walked umbrella-less into the rain.   


2

Judith Liebewitz's claim sounded like bullshit, but so does every claim made by every person who thinks they're being stalked. Once in a while, a couple of them end up dead, so better safe than sorry. Besides, Liebewitz's case was easy money--all I had to do was sit and wait and maybe shoot a couple of people. I went home and called Detective John Payne of the Midtown South Homicide Squad. The rain was keeping the murderers off the streets--or maybe there were no murderers left, since the crime rate just kept going down--and he was at his desk. The enthusiasm with which he answered my questions indicated he was bored out of his skull. 

"Yeah, Lauren Wyle. Motherfucker raped her, then hacked her up. Ol' LeRoy caught his lunch, last year." 

I wondered what it was about the name LeRoy that made adding the adjective 'Ol'' to the beginning of it feel so natural. "You think there's anything to this woman's claim?" 

"LeRoy worked with two other guys--I don't remember their names, but I could look 'em up. They specialized in home invasions. One worked for ConEd, the other for NYNEX. They dealt coke and blackballs and whatever else, so they built up a network of geeks and scumbags who'd help them out with equipment or uniforms, vans, whatever. Made it easy for them to get into some pretty secure apartments. LeRoy was the only one who didn't have that kind of background, which is most likely why he botched that robbery so bad." 

"These other guys ever take a fall?" 

"I think so, but I gotta check. Lemme call you back." 

I said okay and hung up. Twenty minutes after I got back to my apartment with my Blimpie's sandwich, after I'd devoured half of it, Payne called back. 

"Got 'em. Dave Thibedeau worked for NYNEX. He got popped in '84 for dealing. Paroled in '95. ConEd boy was Marvin Cloke. He went up for assault and battery in '92 and got out in '95." 

"None of them got nailed for the home invasions?" 

"No, we got most of that info off of CI's in jail they bragged about it to--you know, talking about how much stuff they lifted, how they'd help themselves to things in the 'fridge, steal women's panties. Can't make a case off bullshit like that relayed to you by some dumb mope on the inside. Bottom line, your boys are on the street." 

"Then maybe there's something to this lady's story after all," I mused. 

"Maybe. Who knows? They show, pop 'em. Gimmie a call. I love it when you kill people. Nice and clean, murder weapon in their hand. We close out a bunch of unsolved cases, jack up our average." 

"Nice to know my work is appreciated and admired." 

"Yeah, you miss most blood-producing organs, too--nice neat crime scene. Have yourself a good one. Let me know what happens, either way." 

I said I would and hung up. Then I turned my attention to my equipment. I packed a heavy-duty Mag-Lite, a Nitefinder scope, and a cellular phone. If they thought they could cut off Judith Liebewitz by 86ing her phone and electricity, they'd be in for a hell of a surprise. Then I looked through my guns. I replaced the jacketed hollow-point rounds in my .357 Colt Python snub with jacketless hollow-points. I didn't want my bullets going through the apartment's walls and taking out the neighbor's poodle. Or the neighbors for that matter. Close quarters combat of this nature called for precise shots, not spray-and-pray, but common sense told me that having a mess of ammo didn't hurt, either. So I loaded my Heckler&Koch VP-70 with eighteen rounds of 9mm jacketless. I was torn when I hefted my ivory-gripped, Colt .45 automatic. With the Python and the VP-70, I was duly armed, but a little voice in my head told me that there really was no reason not to bring along a pistol capable of blowing croquet-ball-sized holes in a target. I only packed one clip, though. I wrapped the guns in oily cloths, stowed them in a duffel with the light and the scope, and got ready to leave. 

Then, on a whim, I threw my .38 snub into the load. Never can have too many guns.   


3

Judith Liebewitz was in her apartment when I returned. We exchanged pinched hellos and I plopped the duffel down on her coffee table and began emptying my gear. 

"So far so good," she said with an edgy mixture of concern and enthusiasm. "I didn't hear from anyone while I was at work, and I managed to get there and return safely. Maybe I'm being silly." 

"Maybe, but I doubt it," I said as I laid out the guns. "I checked with a friend of mine in the NYPD. Both of LeRoy's accomplices have been up the river and came out again. They specialize in home invasions, and they're very bad people. Sociopathic with sizable rap sheet and an even more sizable list of things they never got popped for." I extended to her the .38 snub. "Keep this on your person. S&W thirty-eight's the easiest gun in the world to use. Just point and pull the trigger. No cocking, no safety, nothing." 

Liebewitz stared at it as if it was the hand of a hated enemy. "I don't believe in guns," she said tersely. 

"If those guys get past me, you'll convert in a hurry. Take it." She did, reluctantly. I tested the Mag-Lite and the scope, then stowed the guns. The lady had taken hers into her office to keep on hand while she engineered the release of some deviant or other. I found some duct tape in her kitchen which I used to secure the .45 to the bottom of the kitchen table. I nestled the VP-70 beneath the cushions of her couch, then thought better of it. I dug around her kitchen drawers and found a length of shoelace which I used to braid around my belt and create a loop between my khakis and my body. I slid the flat automatic's barrel into the loop which held it as secure as any holster. The name of the game would be to avoid getting disarmed. 

I settled onto the couch and lined up everything I'd need out in front of me. First was the scope, then the Maglite, then the Python, and finally one of Judith Liebewitz's phones--a sophisticated model with a speakerphone function. I adjusted the volume to low and let the speakerphone buzz a monotonous dial tone at me while I read a paperback until the buzz began bleating, then cut off completely. When that happened, I turned off the speakerphone for a moment, then turned it back on and welcomed the buzz. If Thibedeau and Cloke were smart, they'd take out Judith Liebewitz's phone before they cut her electricity. That would give me an edge. 

The evening passed this way. I struggled to keep alert amid the montony of the dial tone and the background white-noise of rain. When I grew distracted, I walked around Liebewitz's apartment. When I grew tired, I swallowed a Vivarin tablet and washed it down with a Coke. The rain pounded and splashed, the phone buzzed, the paperback slipped away, and nothing else happened. 

Judith Liebewitz joined me around eleven-thirty. She wore her faded, threadbare sweats and thick, pink socks and looked for all hell like a woman in the throes of a midlife crisis. Problem was, she couldn't pass for a college student on her best day. "Thought I'd keep you company," she smiled and began making tea. When she was through, she brought two steaming mugs to the table and handed one to me. I didn't particularly like tea, but accepted it anyway. 

"You must be getting bored," she observed, gesturing with her mug and the buzzing phone. 

"I'm patient. This isn't so different from any other stakeout I've run. Actually, it's a lot more comfortable than sitting in my car for a week, watching some guy who's cheating on his wife or ripping off a workman's comp claim." 

"I guess not. I hadn't thought of that." She sipped her tea slowly, allowing a long silent minute to pass between us. It told me she hadn't a clue how to relate to me. A small part of me felt like breaking the ice and taking the burden off her, but it got squashed by a more belligerent part that said fuck her if she lives in an ivory tower. 

"You've been very helpful," she finally said. I shrugged. She was paying me. "Much more so than the police. I think they felt I was getting what I deserved." 

"Well, you can't hardly blame them," I said laconically. "Not with you springing all those bad people they worked so hard to put out on the street." 

"Everybody gets a defense," Judith Liebewitz said, her voice slipping into a more comfortable, more combatative mode. "That's the way the law works, the defendant has a right to the best defense they can afford. It's what makes this country great. People can say what they want, but I don't think they'd like living in a draconian society very much. Ask any Holocaust survivor how they feel about having a legal system that defends the individual, and I think you'll get a clearer picture of just what it is we take for granted." 

"Maybe. I mean, your argument is nice and politically correct and cloaks you in the flag, but I'm willing to bet you've never been at a crime scene, or watched a body being tagged and bagged. That's generally where the breakdown in communication occurs. You're a person who works in an office, a courtroom. Cops work in the street, and get to deal firsthand with all the terrible things you read about in arrest reports. You deal in arguments, precedents, technicalities. Cops deal in common sense, chaos, force, violence...two completely different worlds." 

Judith Liebewitz's eyes flared a slow, simmering affront. "Your argument is a little insulting from where I am. You seem to be saying that cops are out waging the war and all of us lawyers are just getting fat while we talk about irrelevant matters. Fiddling while Rome burns. Truth is, Mr. Callow, I argued for a man's life. It doesn't get any more real than that." 

I mulled this over. She may have had a point. "What was your argument?" 

"For the death case? Oh, that LeRoy wasn't mentally competent to have understood the proceedings up until that point and that, at the very least, the sentence of death against him should be commuted to life in prison." 

"But the judge didn't buy it?" 

"No," she sighed and sipped a little more of her tea. "It was a long shot anyway. And I think the courts were tired of hearing a different spin placed on what LeRoy did. The defense at the original trial tried to argue that LeRoy had been set up for the crime, but that was a boneheaded thing to do--the evidence against him was just too much. Murder weapon, bloodstained clothes, victims things at his residence, and the lunkhead confessed. He later recanted, but in the stationhouse, he confessed. The PD tried to convince the jury that nobody would be so stupid as to have that much evidence sitting around for cops to find, and that it must have been planted. The jury, however, took only four hours to convict." 

"So you took a more reasonable track when you argued that last appeal," I said. "He did it. He deserves to go to jail, but not to the gas chamber. Reasonable. Probably would have worked better at his sentencing than at his appeal." 

Liebewitz nodded agreeably. "That's why I tried to mental competence route. We paraded our doctors, they brought theirs...we lost. I figured we would." 

"Then why'd you try?" 

"A colleague of mine told me about the case. I took it because I don't feel the state has the right to take life. I mean, it can barely run a DMV and we want to give it the authority to execute a man? Doesn't that seem ridiculous to you?" 

I scratched my cheek. These were what my father used to call "chase your tail questions". The kind that you could never answer and just tired yourself out trying to. They were the kind of debates that Jim Shaefton, one of my partners at the Bureau, used to play with. He'd set up an airtight position on the issue, then play his own devil's advocate and demolish it. Then establish the devil's position and demolish that. Then set up the devil's devil's advocate position and demolish that. He could usually put off reviewing his Unusual Occurance Reports for a good hour that way. "I've taken lives as an agent of the state." 

"When you were with the FBI," she nodded, "of course. But those were matters of self-defense. You weren't an executioner." 

"True enough." 

She took a long sip of her cooling tea, and I noticed mine for the first time. I took a pull. It was vaguely fruity. That's what I hate about tea: no definition. 

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" 

"No," I answered, gulping some tea. 

"Did it bother you to kill those men?" Judith Liebewitz's eyes drilled me. 

"No. Should it have?" 

"Well," she shifted on the couch, "I think it would bother a lot of people. Just seeing a person die is a hard thing. But to know that..." 

"Every person I've killed, I've done so to save my skin or someone else's." 

"Still," Liebewitz said, her voice growing slippery, "I'm not sure that would be enough for me." 

"Okay, look at it this way: you got a client--a twenty-seven year-old girl--and you come through her door after three hours of surveillance. A group of bad people need her dead, because she's living proof of one of their crimes--don't ask, just go with it. So you go through the door and this two-hundred pound Golem has her splayed over her kitchen table with her skirt hiked up. If it looks like a rape, it'll be easier to deflect attention from the motive for the murder. You go through the door and a nine-millimeter round punches a hole next to your ear. You draw your gun and take him down with one shot. Now, where exactly is the moral ambiguity in that?" 

"Could you have shot him in the leg or the arm? Somewhere non-vital?" 

"Not when he's carrying a gun. You don't want to take that chance." 

Liebewitz puffed out her cheeks. "Don't you at least wish you lived in a world where these things aren't necessary? Where you didn't have to take human life?" 

"I don't much dwell on what isn't." 

"Do you sometimes find it pleasing? The people you've killed?" 

I nodded. "That happens sometimes." 

"Doesn't that scare you? I'd think it would scare you. It'd scare me." 

"Yeah, it does. But that's the nature of the beast. My choice of profession." 

Judith Liebewitz sighed and leaned back in her chair. "I guess I just can't understand it. I've spent my professional career fighting the practice of sanctioned killing. I can't understand someone who isn't outraged by death." 

"I'm outraged by death. The right people's death." 

"I'm outraged by anyone's death. Even LeRoy Washington's. To react in any other way is to forfeit our morality." 

I killed the rest of my tea. "There's the difference between us: the way I see it, LeRoy Washington can take whatever he gets. Preoccupying ourselves with his well-being is an insult to Lauren Wyle." 

"Who is..." 

"The victim." 

"I don't understand." 

I tried to organize my argument. "Everyone gets concerned about the treatment of the perpetrator. Not because anybody truly cares about him, but because they want to maintain their humanity in the face of that victimization. So what do we got? We got a girl whose rape and murder has mobilized cops, prosecutors, and defenders. These people then dehumanize her as much as possible by hiding behind the legal system and making the whole thing just one more ball-bearing in the wheels of justice. The person who was victimized to give all these people a purpose is ignored in favor of the man who did it." 

"But the victim is dead. What does she care whether we weep for her or not?" 

I smiled at her a little sadly. "This is where we differ." 

Judith Liebewitz took a long sip and put her empty mug on a magazine on the table. "I just can't imagine being so immersed in that world that you become so mercenary about killing. How do you keep from, I don't know, dying inside? I couldn't even bring myself to attend LeRoy Washington's execution." 

I shrugged. "Day by day. Reality is, if you want to catch and punish those kinds of people, you have to plunge into their world. There is no other way to do it." 

"I'm glad I don't have to do that," she said, then stretched conservatively. "Well, that did it for me. I'm going to bed. See you in the morning?" 

There was a lot that wasn't stated or asked in her last sentence. I didn't address any of it, just said "Okay." 

There was a lot I hadn't stated in my explanation to her as well. Truth was, the scenario I described--the one with Kelly Krause--was the exception to the rule that says somebody's got to be worked over before you can ever get into the game. You're an avenger, not a knight, and with avenger status comes bad dreams, alcohol-immune regrets, and the exhaustion that comes with being, by definition, too little too late. 

At ten after two, the dial tone went dead without the accompanying recorded operator recording. My pulse hitched, and my breathing deepened as I scooped up my gun, slipped the Mag-Lite into the pocket of my blazer and then put the nitescope to my eye. A moment later the lights went out. The nitescope laid out the room in shades of green, as if I was underwater. I slid off the couch and flattened against the wall. I heard nothing in the hallway. Sweeping the room with the nitescope, the only movement that caught my eye was the undulating, silver curtain of the rain outside the sliding glass door on the balcony. 

I tightened my lips against my teeth, playing a hunch, and took up a position behind a protruding closet. I was right. There was a reason these two mopes never got popped on a B&E. They were coming over the balcony from the neighboring apartment. Good move. The locks on sliding doors were easier to pick than the brains of a politician. They could jimmy the door open, do whatever they wanted to do, and then leave through the front door--locking it behind them with the keys they'd stolen. No sign of B&E for the investigating officers to find, and only a savvy detective would figure out how they'd done it. It helped that Liebewitz's neighbor was a seventy-three year old woman who could probably sleep through an artillery barrage. 

They were well-equipped. Through the scope, I could see they wore nitefinder goggles and carried toolkits on their coveralls. They also both carried a knife and a 9mm automatic. I put the scope down and pulled out the Mag-Lite, holding in a cop's crossarmed grip in my left hand which allowed me to direct it while I braced my gunarm on that arm. I waited a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness and listening to them work the lock. Finally, I could make out their forms in the rain. Then I ambushed them. 

The one in back--the one not working on the lock--was the danger. While his partner worked with lockpicks, he stood lookout, a Beretta dangling from one long hand. I nailed him first, clicking the Mag-Lite on and off quickly, sending the piercing beam directly into his nitefinder goggles. I'd used similar models enough to know that sudden bursts of light blinded them. True to form, his head jerked around and the gun came up. I clicked the light on to assure my shot and fired once through the glass door, then sighted on the second and fired once more. Both slumped on the balcony and didn't move. 

I was opening the sliding glass door when I could finally hear well enough to make out Judith Liebewitz shouting at me from her doorway. She was sleep-frayed and clutching a frayed pink robe around her body. 

"They came," I said, my mouth dry. "They cut the lights to your apartment, and the phone. I got both of them, put two holes in your glass door, though." In actuality, I'd done more than just put holes in it. The glass tumbled out of the frame when I slid the door open to check the bodies. I'd hit the guy with the lockpicks in the chest; his partner straight through the lenses of his goggles. Neither even twitched as I crouched in the drenching rain and touched their necks for pulses. When I stood, I found Judith Liebewitz standing in the glass-littered doorway, staring intently at the bodies. 

"You should go inside," I told her. 

"No," she said quietly, "I should see this." 

I called Payne, who arrived with a Crime Scene Unit and a couple of uniforms. He was impressed with the consideration I showed in shooting the two men out where the rain would wash off the crime scene. Statements were taken, the bodies bagged and removed, and I collected a check for two days work. 

I ran into her again, a few weeks later when the rains had stopped. She was coming out of a Chinese Laundromat. We traded a little stilted small talk before she mustered the courage to ask: "Did you have any sleepless night over it?" 

"No," I replied. 

She shook her head. "God, I just can't imagine that." 

"I think you can," I said. 

She stopped and pinned me with a quizzical look. I explained. "You knew what would happen when you hired me. It's not uncommon for attorneys to have bodyguards--you could have hired some. You could have stayed someplace else. You could have pushed the issue with the DA's office and set up a trap for those men. Instead you hired me, knowing what the outcome would be. You must have known one man wouldn't have a real good chance of apprehending two armed men. You hedged your bets, knowing I'd kill them." 

Her gaze grew colder than the hawk which billowed past us. "So you think I'm an accomplice to murder?" 

"No, just a coward like the rest of us." 

I don't know if she took my words to heart, but she walked with me and made small talk for the next few blocks, so I don't think I offended her too much. 


End file.
